


Intervention

by AlchemyAlice



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-26
Updated: 2011-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlchemyAlice/pseuds/AlchemyAlice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik broods at the window as the sun sets on South America, and Emma is utterly bored with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intervention

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 1stclass_kink: "Emma knows Erik has a thing for Charles. She can't read Charles but she saw how much Charles cares for Erik. After the falling out and when Emma notices Erik is pining (she's an intuitive woman, helmet or no), she sends Charles a message -- 'Fix him. We can't take over the world if he's so lovesick.' Then she gets Azazel to teleport Erik and Charles to an island so they can make up and make out."
> 
> ...except then it ended up a lot less funny than that. Basically, this is my post-divorce catharsis fic, because their love is so star-crossed and epic and sadface that I had to fix it, if only partially/not at all. Yeah. Life ruiners, indeed. *facepalm*

Impatience wins out. That is what she will continue to tell herself. 

Their new fearless leader is standing at the window, Argentinian breeze making his linen jacket flutter at the tails. His hands are shoved in his pockets. He wears Shaw's helm like a conquering prince. 

Emma doesn't need to see into his mind to read the slope of his shoulders, and the pensive lines pulling at his mouth. 

What glimpses of his mind Magneto has allowed her are more than enough to satisfy her loyalties—his anger and conviction and edge of hard-won cruelty make him just as, if not more imposing, than Shaw. She took her place at his side out of more than simple gratitude for her release from humiliating custody by her inferiors. His goals are certain, and his methods vicious, and she respects that absolute focus and unwillingness to forgive. 

That focus, however, wavers on just one point, and it is a potentially disastrous one. 

She sips her martini from further inside the room, savoring the taste, and watches as Erik—not Magneto, not at this moment—exhales slowly, shakily. He has forgotten she is in the room with him. 

A postcard had arrived today. A picture of Oxford in panorama on one side, and four words on the other:  _I'm glad you're well._  

An admission of knowledge, and a refusal to chase. A declaration of forgiveness. Magneto read it, and then set it down on the table, and Emma watched him as he closed up and went still. "We'll need to move again," he said, voice hard. 

Azazel and Angel had nodded, willing enough. Mystique had swallowed, but said nothing. 

And now Erik broods at the window as the sun sets on South America, and Emma is utterly bored with him. 

She finishes her martini and stands up. Something has to be done. 

*** 

“Azazel.” 

He turns his head only slightly in acknowledgment. She isn’t offended—Azazel most often seems only half-interested in their on-the-run existence, his investment mercenary at best. She likes his soldierly pragmatism however; enough to bring this to him. 

“How do you feel about a brief diversion?” she asks. 

He looks at her fully, and she sends him a series of thoughts, heavy with a mix of irritation and amusement. 

His white teeth look unnatural against the burnt vermillion of his skin. Nonetheless, they are bared in a grin. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were looking out for our lovesick leader.” 

“I’m tired of his _sighing.”_  

“Very unfortunate indeed,” Azazel agrees. “Are you sure it’s a good idea?” 

“No,” she admits, readily enough. “But anything is better than running every time we get mail. Xavier is a threat, but a secondary one. And he and Magneto have unfinished business that they no doubt will happily circle around while we are trying to fight a war. We ought to do something.” 

“You just like Argentina,” Azazel accuses, though lightly. He is already convinced, it’s clear. If only for a change from the constant moving and the desperate silence as Magneto plans, and Angel impatiently tries to amuse herself, and Mystique worries. It’s a veritable psychic mess, and Emma should be doing better things with her time than trying to keep it all straight. None of them should have to run anymore, particularly not from their leader's own emotional baggage. 

“Where do you think is best, then?” Azazel asks, after a moment. His amusement is shining through clearly now, a red flare of thought and humor crackling around him. 

“Best put them where they left off,” Emma replies, demure. “I’ll take care of communications to Xavier’s little band.” She scans the room, and spots the bar. “Another drink?” 

Azazel’s tail lashes like an intemperate cat’s. “Certainly.” 

*** 

Xavier’s estate has security, but not nearly enough. Emma blocks her entrance from her fellow telepath’s thoughts, and instead leaves a very specific, very strong message in the dreams of his young compatriots. 

Hank, Sean and Alex wake the next morning with clipped, distinct words resonating in their minds: 

 _Your professor is on an enforced holiday. Rest assured, he is safe, and you will be able to locate him without trouble. However, it is requested that you leave him be for at least the evening day before retrieving him. It’s for his own damned good._  

They run to find his bed empty, his wheelchair gone with him. They look at each other. 

“We can’t trust her,” Alex says, unnecessarily. 

“We might be able to trust Erik, though,” Sean replies. 

Hank shoves his glasses up his wide, feline nose. “It’ll take a while to find him anyway. If he’s easily found, then we won’t have to worry. But either way, we’ll get him back.” 

The house seems silent and vacuous. They set to work as best they can, Hank in the lead. 

*** 

Erik can’t help but notice the sudden absence in the small abode they had carved out in Buenos Aires. He catches the faint scent of cinnamon that indicates Azazel’s unique method of travel. He twitches, but doesn’t act. No doubt they have reasons for their actions. He doesn’t trust them, but they are not at cross-purposes, at least for the moment. 

Raven pads into the room, crossing her arms as she does so, scales making whispering noises against each other. “He won’t come after us, you know,” she says. “We don’t have to leave.” 

“We can’t trust that,” he lies. He is all too aware that he’s lying, but he knows that their ideologies weigh solid and heavy between them at the crux, and that they have finally split for good and for that reason alone, he can’t do anything but lie. To himself first, then everyone else. 

Cinnamon bursts across his palette, followed quickly by the chill of Emma’s presence. He turns. 

Emma cocks her head, the epitome of detachment. “Time for you to go, Erik,” she says. 

He narrows his eyes. There is metal at her belt, metal enough to keep her at bay. 

Azazel wears nothing but bespoke cloth. 

More cinnamon, and then a  _shift._  

*** 

White sand. Sea breeze.  _What?_  

Charles opens his eyes to blinding light, and immediately squints. He is prone on the sand, his pajamas sticking uncomfortably. It was late at night where he had been. It is early evening here, the sun one massive beam of orange and red, still tropical and hot and bright. 

He stays very still, and casts wide for information. 

What he receives blows him away. 

*** 

Azazel is dangerously fast. The helmet is gone with him when he disappears from the coast, leaving Erik exposed and furious and staggering. He reels back before regaining his balance, but already that too-familiar feeling is right there, at the back of his mind, never pressing, just  _present._  Charles. 

Good god. 

What on earth _possessed_ them? He is going to kill Emma when he returns, crystalline physiology be damned. 

*** 

They are alone. Just this familiar mind alongside Charles’ own, and no one else for several miles, where civilization begins. 

Charles closes his eyes, and waits. 

*** 

Once he gets his bearings, Erik scans his surrounds efficiently, too accustomed to being displaced. Emma is gone with Azazel, as far as he can tell. It doesn’t make any sense. 

And then Emma’s voice projects softly, as if from a considerable, but still communicable distance away.  _You’ve been missing him. We thought you could use some time to…work out your differences._

You are a conniving busybody, he replies, without missing a beat, but all he hears in response is a snort, and then, more gently, _You need to see him. We…we didn’t know._  

Something in her tone stills him. He turns, very carefully, on his heels. 

Charles is lying on the ground, almost casual, like a beach-goer sunning himself. 

Except that there is a chair next to him, in the sand. 

*** 

Emma watches from several miles away, from both her own eyesight behind binoculars, and the open minds of Erik and Charles as they struggle to acclimate. She filters through the barrage of information willingly, allowing Azazel to go home and report what is going on for the benefit of Mystique and Angel. She has a feeling that Mystique, at least, will approve. 

In her mind’s eye, Erik takes a stumbling step forward, comprehension looming large even as Charles remains passive (half-necessarily, half-willingly) in the sand. He opens his eyes only as Erik’s shadow shades his face. 

“Erik. Fancy seeing you here.” 

Erik blinks, almost unseeingly, and then he gestures to the chair at Charles’ shoulder. “What is this?” he whispers, hoarse and surprised. 

Charles meets his gaze evenly. Emma can distantly admire his composure even in his incapacitated state. “That is a result of a certain bullet’s ricochet off an…imposing force,” he says baldly. And then, more quietly, “I didn’t intend for you to find out.” 

Erik’s jaw tightens, one long hard line of regret and anger and vengeance. “You don’t need to shield me from the things that I have done,” he says, “Even ones that I wish I hadn’t. You shouldn’t.” 

“I don’t need to,” Charles confirms, elbows sinking in the sand, leaving him prone. “But I will when I can.” 

Erik drops to his knees, reaching forward. “Let me—” 

“The chair is only going to get mired in this stuff; I don’t see why it was brought along for the ride, really.” 

“It’s welded steel, isn’t it?” Erik replies, and then his hands are in the sand, digging under as Charles struggles to sit upright, finding the crooks of his arms and knees and pulling. 

Charles comes away from the ground with a shower of grit, bare feet looking pathetic and useless from under the cuffs of his pajamas. Erik handles him like he is made of glass. Charles just watches his face, one arm automatically winding around Erik’s shoulders to give him better leverage. 

“I was brought here by your new colleagues,” he observes, all mild English manners and patience. “Was it on your orders?” 

“It was not,” Erik replies quickly, and bends over the wheelchair. “They seemed to think that I…that I needed to see you.” 

“In my current state? That seems counterproductive.” 

“They didn’t know.” 

Charles raises his eyebrows. “Oh.” 

Erik’s grip tightens involuntarily. Charles doesn’t wince. Instead he says, “I forgive you.” 

The incandescent rage that had momentarily gripped him disperses abruptly, leaving him hollow. “You shouldn’t.” 

“Too late,” he replies lightly, like he is forgiving Erik for forgetting an appointment, not leaving him in this…state. Erik admits to himself that he has always been defeated by Charles’ ability to let go. He eases him into the chair, lifting it out of the sand so that it hovers comfortably an inch above the ground. 

As he is about to pull away, however, he feels Charles’ hand grip the back of his neck. His forehead meets Charles’ under the heat of the setting Cuban sun. 

“I wish you had stayed, my friend,” Charles says quietly, “Even though I know you could not.” 

Erik resists the urge to close his eyes, and draws back instead. The chair shudders slightly as he struggles to remain in control. 

Charles allows it, doesn’t even flinch at the jolt of the chair. He looks down at the contraption, hovering above the ground. He spins the wheels, quirking a smile as they whirl uselessly against the air. “You going to tote me around the island like this?” he asks. “Because while it’s appreciated, it’s also a bit demeaning.” 

Erik winces infinitesimally, but schools his expression down quickly enough. “How else are you going to get around?” he asks. 

“Point.” Charles peers at the sunset. “Do you think we could find some shade, then? This sun is brutal, I think my nose is beginning to burn already.” 

“Careful, your heritage is showing.” 

“When does it not?” 

Erik smiles thinly, and acquiesces. He sets the pace, keeping Charles at his side, as if they were both walking of their own volition. Charles seems to find this particularly amusing, folding his hands carefully in his lap with an air of imperiousness hardly suited to someone with no choice but to sit. Erik leads them over to a crop of palm trees and sets Charles’ chair down where the sand transitions into proper dirt, giving him a measure of maneuverability. 

Charles sighs at the comparative cool of the shade. After a long moment, he says, “How is Raven? Is she all right?” 

Erik leans back against the trunk of a palm. He had learned, what seemed like aeons ago, that it was simplest when talking to Charles to just default to honesty. But that doesn’t make it any more difficult to say, “She misses you. She worries.” 

“She needn’t worry. I’m fine.” 

Erik shoots him a glance, causing Charles to shift. “Well. Beyond the obvious.” He exhales. “Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I miss her as well, and wish her all the best.” 

“I will,” Erik promises, meaning it. Mystique will be glad to hear from him. She will be devastated to learn of what has happened to him. 

He admits privately that now he isn’t looking forward to going back, despite being effectively abandoned for an undetermined length of time by his own officers. 

“You know,” Charles says, looking sidelong at him, “When a telepath tells you that something is for your own good, he or she is often right.” 

“You’re trusting Miss Frost’s judgment now?” Erik asks in disbelief. 

“I trust what she read in you.” 

“And just what is that?” he says, annoyed. 

“Ambivalence,” Charles says simply. “It’s no doubt somewhat…trying to your comrades?” 

“You aren’t going to convince me to come back with you.” 

“No,” Charles agrees, sounding chastened in a way that makes Erik almost want to take it back. “And no doubt if I could, they never would have given us a chance to ever speak to each other again. But, you don’t want to call yourself my enemy.” 

“You aren’t,” Erik says, turning to him fully. “You and I both want to protect others like us—” 

“And that is where our similarities end,” Charles finishes. He looks steadily at Erik, looking older than his years. “Someday soon, battle lines are going to be drawn, and you and I are going to be on opposite sides of them. We will be, by definition, enemies.” 

Erik knows this. But he has never allowed himself to speak it aloud. He feels his knees judder slightly, enough to send him sliding down the trunk of the tree to sit on the ground next to Charles’ wheelchair. He lists slightly to the side without meaning to. The metal of the armrest feels cool against his temple. “I didn’t want that to happen,” he says quietly, resting his head. 

“Neither did I,” Charles replies. 

Erik is still and quiet for a moment, and then he feels the very careful pressure of Charles’ long-fingered hand finding the contour of his shoulder, just where it meets his neck and his skin is exposed above his collar. 

Crackling along that point of connection, he feels Charles’ distinct Oxbridge-accented cadence resonate with the words,  _I will never be able to hurt you, my friend. But I will always try to stop you._

Then that is your burden, Erik thinks in reply.  _And mine._  

Charles' grip tightens on his shoulders. Erik closes his eyes. 

*** 

It takes three hours for Hank to locate them, and another four to get the new jet there. 

They arrive in a haze of kicked up sand in the semi-darkness of twilight, and then…then there are fifteen minutes that none of them will remember. 

Emma only picks it up when she and Azazel go to retrieve their own cargo. 

Erik emerges from the trees with an unreadable expression, but Emma scoops up what she hadn't seen before in one long string of emotions and memories of which she knows centuries won't wear away the vibrancy. These are memories that will stay with Erik until his mind ceases to function. 

She sees it as he did, through a haze of conviction and grief and something deeper and more cutting that she refuses to identify as love. 

*** 

Erik and Charles end up sitting in the sand. Charles abandons his chair, levering himself out of it and sliding only somewhat gracefully onto the ground. Erik realizes halfway through the maneuver what Charles is trying to do, and scrambles to ease him down with a modicum of dignity. Charles looks at him oddly, but smiles. "Thanks," he says. "I get sick of the chair sometimes. Suppose I'll have to get used to it at some point." 

Erik shakes his head. "Hank will build some sort of fantastical brace for you, and you'll walk like the rest of us in no time." 

"There are far more important things for Hank to work on," Charles says gently. "I have no urge to be selfish in this matter." 

"It's not selfish to want something so simple and so important for yourself." 

Charles looks at him steadily. "In this case, it is." 

Erik knows there can be no moving him on the matter. It makes him feel like he can't breathe for hurting. 

They sit in silence for a long moment. The sun has set entirely, leaving them in the semi-darkness. Then Erik says, "Did you see the wreck in the trees?" 

"Of the submarine? Of course. Your Miss Frost has an interesting theatrical sensibility to her, bringing us to this particular beach, of all places." 

"The government will be around to clean it up soon enough." 

"No doubt," Charles agrees. 

"But you're not with them any longer." 

Charles hesitates. "No." 

Erik tries not to make his silence triumphant. He fails. 

Charles sighs. "Always a competition with you." 

"Stop reading my mind." 

"You think loudly and in complete sentences. It's like you're asking to be read from cover to cover." 

"Only with you," Erik says, before he can stop himself. 

Charles seems to stop breathing. Erik can't hear him at all, like he suddenly stopped existing and was swallowed by the darkness. He swallows, and figures that he might as well finish the thought aloud. It is, after all, already in complete sentences, just like Charles said. 

"I haven't had anyone in my life for a long time, you know that. And then I had you. And I know I've lost you," Erik confesses, barely audible beneath the water lapping up on the shore. "But I can't...I don't want to do this without you." 

"You won't have to," Charles says, soft and certain. "I'll be on the other side, pulling you back." He pauses, and then even more quietly, "You haven't lost me." 

Erik turns sharply to him, and can only make out his dim silhouette in the darkness. He doesn't know whether he is more terrified of not being able to see Charles' expression, or the possibility of doing so. "Charles," he starts. 

"We have been through much together, you and I," Charles says, with a hint of wry self-conscious humor at his own cliche. But then he is steady and sincere when he adds, "Enough, I think, to know that even if we had met under different circumstances, my...attachment to you would be the same." 

Erik is fairly certain that he has stopped breathing. "Charles," he repeats hoarsely. 

Charles blinks, his eyelashes visible in shadow as they sweep down, and then back up. "Whatever you may think," he says, like it’s a well-known truth, "You are not incapable of being loved." 

Erik curls inward without thinking, like his insides have been clawed out and he is desperately trying to close up the wound. He hunches over his knees. "You're impossible," he chokes. 

"So are you," Charles says. His eyes glitter in the darkness. "Or so modern science would claim." 

Erik laughs unexpectedly; it comes out like an uncomfortable cough. He looks back over at Charles in disbelief, just in time to catch a faint tremor in his shoulders. He looks more thoroughly, eyes adjusting to the dark, and can see the pale outlines of Charles' toes. "Are you cold?" he asks, after a moment. Without the sun, the chill of the ocean breeze is evident. 

"Possibly," Charles replies, after a minute hesitation. "My upper half feels all right, but I can't really tell with the lower half." 

" _Gott in Himmel_ ," Erik murmurs. He takes off his jacket, and flings it over his companion's legs. Charles is radiating heat, and Erik doesn't want him to lose that to the night air. He ends up with his face very close to Charles' as he leans over to shove the edges of the jacket under the smaller man's thighs. Close enough to hear and feel Charles’ breath stutter so quietly. 

“You’re going to end up with some sort of respiratory infection,” Erik says to cover the silence, while simultaneously half-embarrassed at how it makes him sound. “Is your circulation still normal? If it isn’t, we—” 

“It’s fine,” Charles interrupts, and Erik can just  _hear_  the bubble of laughter being suppressed. “Circulation is the same, it’s just the feeling that is gone. Thank you.” 

He stops suddenly, and then he is looking intently at Erik’s down-turned face, and his gaze is a palpable, warm thing that has Erik pausing too. He finds himself terrified to look up, and see what expression is on Charles’ face. 

He has to know anyway. 

“Thank you,” Charles whispers again, nonsensically, but this time his tone is entirely different, and so loaded Erik can hardly bear it. He looks up, and in the same moment Charles’ hand is at his jaw, curling beneath his ear. 

“Charles,” he says again, and only has to lean centimeters forward. 

And of course that is when Xavier's plane comes down, out of the sky like some sort of bird of prey. The lights along the wings burn cold and the sand kicks up in whorls. 

“No,” Charles says quietly, against Erik’s mouth, voice firm beneath the roar of engines. “We’re not done yet.” 

The plane stops, hovers for a moment, and then arcs upwards again to hover somewhere in the darkness. 

“Sneaky bastard,” Erik murmurs. “Whose head are you in?” 

“All of them,” Charles says, never moving from the closeness between them. “Hank flying, Sean and Alex in the rear. They won’t even feel a pause.” 

Erik is quite sure that he’ll never fail to find Charles incredible, even when it’s being used against him. “Good,” he whispers. 

And with that, he closes the gap. 

It is  _astounding_  how well they fit. 

They should have done this so long ago. 

Charles kisses like a gentleman, of course he does, and it’s almost painful to reciprocate but Erik does anyway because he’s fairly certain in this moment that if he doesn’t he’ll drown. 

He braces himself over Charles, shoving one knee between nerveless ones, upsetting the jacket he’d so meticulously tucked in. Charles for his part is both yielding and strong, arms sinuous around Erik’s shoulders, hands in his hair, stroking his cheeks, and it is too much sensation for Erik to bear after all of this time never having it, not with this thrum of completion riding alongside, turning every contact into a brand on his skin. He can only press in closer, and pray for the moment to linger, to have everything he’s feeling laid open just this once for Charles to read and understand and remember. 

He wishes he could do the same. 

Charles smiles against his mouth. 

And then suddenly, he  _can._  

It crashes over him, a torrent of emotion and warmth and regret, at once refracted and so eloquent, so whole that they are unmistakably Charles’ thoughts and feelings, honed into perfect clarity by a lifetime of needing to control every inch of his mind for the sake of the rest of the world. It is a storm of good and bittersweet memories wrapped into a neat package that leaves him breathless and aching and never wanting to leave. 

 _Then stay,_  Charles suggests, but it is a hopeless endeavor, and they both know it. Charles has changed, Erik realizes suddenly in that moment; his resignation is subtly hardened, his worldview tarnished. 

Erik did that to him. 

 _Don’t,_  Charles admonishes, in the back of his mind, and so he doesn’t, or tries not to. He just presses closer, learning every contour of Charles, feeling and unfeeling; it is the whole of him he wants to know. Charles, despite his small frame, seems to encase him entirely. 

“My door will always be open to you,” Charles promises, aloud and soft against Erik’s lips. 

“I won’t harm you,” he returns, because he knows that this is one promise he will, he  _must_  keep. “Never again.” 

(It goes unacknowledged that they harm each other constantly with their choices.) 

The tide is coming in swiftly. If he really wanted to, Erik could alter the earth’s magnetic fields to pull it back for a time. 

Charles chides him for his frivolous thoughts, even as his mouth quirks at the edges in amusement, and closes over his adam’s apple. 

Erik closes his eyes, bending to capture Charles’ mouth again. The jet still hovers overhead anyway, and they cannot stop time altogether, just allay it for a while. 

Charles senses it as well, and pulls him ever more deeply into the kiss before finally letting him breathe. “We’ll meet again,” he says, confident. 

“Not just on the battlefield,” Erik says, because he doesn’t know if he could handle that alone, always seeing Charles one way, as Professor X, and not as simply doe-eyed and brilliant Charles. 

“No,” Charles agrees, “Not just there.” 

It is a painful comfort in that moment that Erik realizes the connection between them is still open, and that Charles needs this reassurance as much as he does. That they will never be just code names to each other. 

It has to be said, though. "This probably won’t end well." 

Charles' tilts his head, half acquiescence. “Circumstances may change.” 

“We won’t.” 

Charles raises an eyebrow. “Haven’t we already?” 

Erik closes his mouth, jaw tight. The water is lapping close on the shore now. Charles is warm beneath him, such a contrast to the chill of the wind. His hands are tracing strange patterns along the contours of Erik’s back. 

He thinks that maybe this is enough. This fleeting moment, and the knowledge that they had made promises to each other that they intend to keep even across battle lines. He thinks that it is enough for him, at least, and probably more than he deserves. 

But Charles… 

“It is as much as either of us can bear, I think,” Charles murmurs, unprompted. “‘Enough’ is a very relative term.” 

And that is as much of an answer as Erik is ever going to get. He nods, and takes a final second to cup Charles’ face in his hand, fingers brushing against his temple almost in imitation of that singular telepathic gesture. Eyelashes brush his palm. 

When he draws away, he brings with him the faintest trace of salt wetness. 

“Time to go,” Erik says, even though they both already know. 

The jet descends again, but by the time its lights hit the ground, Charles is in his chair, wearing a jacket that isn’t his, and Erik is gone. 

“Professor,” Alex says, leaping down the descending ramp, “Are you all right?” 

Charles smiles at him, bland and serene. “I’m fine,” he says. “How was your trip?” 

*** 

Azazel leans against a palm tree, arms crossed, looking both infernal and contemplative. “Interesting war this is going to be,” he comments. 

“Hm,” Emma replies. Erik is striding towards them in the darkness with a scrambling, disorienting miasma of fury and remorse and gratitude leaking out of him in all directions. He glares at her. 

“Don’t ever do that again,” he says. 

She smiles primly, eyes wide. “What was that? Did I hear a ‘thank you, Miss Frost, that was very kind’? ‘I think, Miss Frost, that Argentina may be safe for a while, at least long enough for you to acquire a lovely tan’? Why, you’re most welcome, Magneto, and that is very good news indeed.” 

He growls inarticulately, and passes her to look at Azazel and mutter, “Must you encourage her?” 

Azazel doesn’t bother to answer, ever neutral even while radiating amusement from every pore. Emma grasps his hand as Magneto does the same. She decides to take one last peek into Erik’s mind just as the scent of cinnamon envelops them, on a hunch and a whim. 

Oh. 

A single snapshot, frozen, not from Erik’s mind, but from Charles, laced with that signature distastefully unremitting optimism. Of Charles sitting in his chair again, but with Erik kneeling between his knees, head resting on his chest, listening to the calm of Charles’ heartbeat. The jet’s light is slowly growing above them; they are out of time. 

Charles cards his fingers through Erik’s hair, listening too, and with equal concentration. 

And then a single sentence, not meant for Erik, but for Emma. 

 _Take care of him._  

And Emma knows suddenly, viscerally, as they wink out of sight, that even if it means aborting entire missions, if it means sparing useless unevolved human lives, that she will never be able to kill Charles Xavier. Not because it would mean killing a fellow mutant, or even because it would break Erik’s heart. 

But because the death of Charles Xavier would be a martyrdom of the highest kind, the death of an ideal. And as a woman who has lived with reading and knowing the very worst and the very best in everyone she has ever met, and many more that she hasn’t, she knows well that realism,  _pragmatism,_  is worthless without idealism as its counterweight. 

Emma has ever been a pragmatist at heart. 

Argentina reappears in front of them in a puff of red smoke. Mystique looks anxiously at Magneto. 

“Erik, is he—?” 

Magneto exhales slowly. He is just slightly more resolved, however, his ragged edges smoothed.  _Good,_  Emma thinks. 

“I need to tell you something,” he says, “Come with me.” 

Mystique follows him away down the hall. 

Riptide looks coolly at the remaining travelers. “Nice journey?” he asks. 

Azazel saunters towards him. “Not without its moments.” 

Emma just smiles, and gets one last echo of strange, fathomless care from Magneto before he puts the helm back on, and goes silent. 

She won’t let any of them be rendered meaningless by the destruction of their weaker, lighter halves. 

 _I will, if you take care yourself, Xavier,_  she sends, across miles and miles of distance, not knowing whether or not she is heard.


End file.
